Top 10 Unexplained Phenomena

So I cruised by one of my favorite Web haunts, LiveScience.com, and took in a little reading on the Top 10 Unexplained Phenomena.

Here's the list, along with my personal opinion under each entry:

10: The Body/Mind Connection
I believe the working mind is an integral part of our biological existence. This is in contrast to what many folks (particularly the religious) believe about our "souls" - that they are separate from our bodies, and will live on after death. Our human brains have developed well beyond the more primitive "stimulus-response" functions of our lesser animal relatives, but they still serve the same function of assisting our physical body's ability to regulate itself. Our species' ability to understand the world around us - why it rains, or where our planet is in the universe - is merely a byproduct of our highly advanced intelligence, entirely unnecessary for us to survive (in nature).

9: Psychic Powers & ESP
If it was true, some phychic - somewhere, at sometime - would have decided to get rich by using it to "see" the lottery (or other gambling results). This has never happened. They say the reason is because they don't want to "abuse" their powers by using them to enrich themselves. But then why write books or charge fees for readings?

8: Near Death Experiences / Life After Death
See my comments under #1 .

7: UFOs
If folks could hold their camcorders still for long enough to get a good shot at one, I might be open to the possibility that flying saucers are visiting our world. Faked evidence abounds, no physical artifacts have ever been brought forward for scientific examination, and I simply refuse to believe that any alien species would travel dozens - if not hundreds - of lightyears across space just to mutilate our cattle and carve pretty designs in our wheat fields.

Ha, ha. Very funny.

6: Deja vu
I think this is a (unintended) trick of our minds. When we observe an object or experience an event, our brain's first instinct is to attempt to identify - or classify - it (as friend or foe, or safe or dangerous). The brain searches its memory to find a previous "entry." If it finds something very similar, it will sometimes present it to our subconcious mind as being the same thing, even if it is not. Thus we are convinced we have come across this object or experienced this event in the past.

5: Ghosts
There simply is no biological reason for ghosts, gouls, or spirits to exist. Anything animate - plant or animal - must take in nutrients, and then store energy and realease it via work (walking, talking, cell division, pumping blood, etc).

I know, I'm so close-minded.

4: Mysterious Disappearances
Shit happens. In France, they still occasionally find the skeletal remains of soldiers killed in World War One (1914-1918). Just because you can't find someone who's disappeared, it doesn't mean that space aliens or the Evil Federal Government took them away.

3: Intuition
See my comments under #6.

2: Bigfoot
I can't believe this made #2!
Any viable species must have a minimal population in order to procreate without degrading the gene pool. One or two bigfoots wandering the hinterlands is not going to do it. I know, I know - we didn't discover gorillas until the 1800s. But that is because we never ventured into their native region (central Africa) until that time period. Once we got there, we found them! We've inhabited North America for over four hundred years, and not a single bigfoot has been captured or killed. No bones, either. That is because... there is no bigfoot creature!

Why is this so difficult for people to accept?

1: The Taos Hum
What the fuck is "The Taos Hum??" And how the hell does it beat out Tom Cruise?


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